ABSTRACT
One of the most influential novelists and literary theorists in the postwar period, Queneau had already acquired a solid reputation in the interwar years and the Occupation through novels such as Le Chiendent (Couchgrass) from 1933, and Pierrot mon ami (Pierrot My Friend) of 1942. A former Surrealist, he was
part of the renewal of influence of the group in the early postwar years. Through works like Zazie dans le métro (1959) and 1965’s The Blue Flowers (Les Fleurs bleues), he combined French spoken language with a rigorous mathematical structure to create complex and intellectually demanding fiction, theoreticized in his two collections of essays, Bâtons, chiffres et lettres (Sticks, Figures and Letters) and Bords (Edges), published in 1953 and 1960 respectively.
